A Critique of 'Amazin Al Quran'

There is a notion popular with Islamic apologists that, unlike other religions, Islam is a religion of science. In that spirit there is an article circulating on the internet titled, Amazing Al Quran that attempts to support this belief that the Qur’an contains science revealed to Muhammad by Allah. Science that the actual authors of the Qur’an could not have known at the time of its writing without divine intervention. This is a critique of that article.

I have arranged the sections of my critique identically with the original article for ease of comparison.

“Amazing Al Quran” Part 1

Introduction

The introduction claims that non-believers who read the Qur’an are surprised that it doesn’t resemble an “old book from the desert”. I don’t know why he thinks I should think that, since I got my copy of the Qur'an fresh off the presses at Penguin publishing. Kidding aside, he means that we are surprised that it not written from a desert provincial perspective, by some sand yokels.

I think the author underestimates this reader. I'm not surprised because I wasn’t expecting it to be provincial. Arabia after all was a major trade route and close to several the seats of some of the earliest civilizations. It’s not like, say, the deserts of aboriginal Australia. I am in the process of reading it and it fully meets my expectations of what an old book from the Saudi desert would contain.

Merchant Marine

The articles author thinks the reader should be amazed that the Qur’an speaks of the sea. I don’t find this amazing at all. Mecca is only forty miles from the sea. Medina is 80 miles from the sea. Mecca and Median are about 200 miles apart. Muhammad sent or led many raiding parties against Caravans moving between Mecca and cities to the north. These caravans traveled along the flat plains along the Red Sea. Certainly Muhammad was aware of the sea and would have heard tales from sailors or people in contact with them. Although Muhammad was illiterate he did pay people to read to him, such as the Jewish scholars. You have to remember that the Arabian Peninsula was a major trade route. Trade passed through there all the way to China and into Europe. Trade for Chinese silk was established over 470 years before Muhammad was born.

The Smallest Thing

The section titled “The Smallest Thing” talks about knowledge of the atom in the Qur’an. The author thinks that the reader should be impressed that the Qur’an says:

" He [i.e., Allah] is aware of an atom's weight in the heavens and on the earth and even anything smaller than that...".

He feels that his shows some kind of scientific understanding that should not have been available to the author of the Qur’an. That might impress the ignorant by I am not the least bit impressed. Taken as a whole it reads like metaphorical boasting and not as a scientific discussion. The English language also has words for a small particle like mote, speck, dot, grain, and fleck. The words in the Qur’an are not being used in a scientific way and translation to any one of these other words is just as suitable in this context.

Here are other references I found to “atom” in the Qur’an:

34:22 Say (O Muhammad): Call upon those whom ye set up beside Allah! They
possess not an atom's weight either in the heavens or in the earth, nor have
they any share in either, nor hath He an auxiliary among them.

99:7 And
whoso doeth good an atom's weight will see it then,
99:8 And whoso doeth ill
an atom's weight will see it then.

10:61 And thou (Muhammad) art not
occupied with any business and thou recitest not a Lecture from this
(Scripture), and ye (mankind) perform no act, but We are Witness of you when ye
are engaged therein. And not an atom's weight in the earth or in the sky
escapeth your Lord, nor what is less than that or greater than that, but it is
(written) in a clear Book.

Here he is using the word atom to mean something insignificant. It’s merely being used as a simile not as a scientific concept. He is doing so when discussing the magnitude of a moral or immoral act. Behavior is not something that is even measured by mass or weight so this cannot be interpreted as scientific.

If Muhammad were using the terminology to mean the Greek concept of atom then he was using it incorrectly. By definition the Greek word for atom means the most indivisible particle of something. It literally means uncuttable. Using that definition all indivisible particles are atoms. So electrons and quarks would be the true Greek atoms. There are no particles smaller than the most indivisible ones by definition. This is something they deduced from a belief that if the cutting could go on forever then you couldn’t reassemble the pieces into the whole.

Also remember H2O is a molecule not an atom in modern terms. So if you continue cutting it down to its atoms it is no longer water. So even though the Greeks had deduced some information about cutting something into smaller pieces they were hardly doing modern science. What they were doing was armchair philosophy. There are no records of them making an actual attempt to verify their idea against reality.

Just because modern scientists decided to use the word atom to mean a proton/neutron nucleus with an orbiting electron doesn’t mean it matches the Greek definition. It doesn’t. The Greeks were wrong on many aspects. Democritus says of atoms:

"They have all sorts of shapes and appearances and different sizes.... Some are rough, some hook-shaped, some concave, some convex and some have other innumerable variations."

None of these notions apply to the modern scientific idea of an atom. They don’t even get close to approaching more primitive orbital models of the atom.

Scientists could just a well have decided to use the word atom to mean molecule instead of its current definition. The most indivisible particle of, for instance, water is not a single molecule of H2O. If you split it then it is no longer water but is Hydrogen and Oxygen. That does not however mean it could not be reassembled so therefore it doesn’t violate the Greek idea, and therefore the Greeks could not have been referring to a molecule. The closest thing to the Greek idea is a subatomic particle.

Lest you think I am playing games see this scientific paper ...

"In this century we thought we found the atom. It might be the
chemical atom at 10**(-10) meters in size, or nucleons at 10**(-15)
meters, or quarks at 3x10**(-16) meters. Or it maybe smaller, or
perhaps even a `Dirac' point-like particle. All of these candidates in some sense would satisfy the Greeks.”

So either Muhammad was using the atom as a simile or he was using the Greek term incorrectly. He certainly wasn’t being precise. Nor is it clear he was trying to convey the idea that there were things smaller than modern day atoms. Heck, the modern terminology wasn’t even coined yet so he couldn’t. In every Qu’ranic reference to the atom cited above the context is spiritual, not scientific.

The author summarizes his position by saying, “Undoubtedly, fourteen centuries ago that statement would have looked unusual, even to an Arab. For him, the dharrah was the smallest thing there was. Indeed, this is proof, that the Qur'an is not outdated.” The author’s conclusion is false in all its particulars. It is not “Undoubtedly” true since he doesn’t know if this would be unusual for an Arab of the time. These were caravan raiders not Greek philosophers. Nor is the final statement true since you cannot prove something based on false conjecture.
What is clear is that Muhammad was using the word dharrah incorrectly if it meant the smallest thing there was and he meant it in a precise scientific way. Seems much more likely that he was not using it literally but figuratively.

Honey

The author next goes into medical advice in the Qur’an. He comes to the conclusion that there is no medical advice in the Qur’an because it was written before the Prophet was born. He says:

“It is the words of Allah, which existed before creation, and thus nothing canbe added, subtracted or altered. In essence, the Qur'an existed and was complete before the creation of Prophet Mohammed, so it could not possibly contain any of the Prophet's own words or advice.”

This is patently absurd considering his whole argument about the atom was in regard how ridiculous it would sound to Arabs of the era to think of something smaller than the dharrah. Why would it matter what Arabs thought if the Qur’an was written prior to their existence. He is trying to have it both ways and I’m not buying it. Either one or the other is true not both.

At first the other claims there is no medical advice then latter he contradicts himself by saying:

“Qur'an only mentions one item dealing with medical treatment, and it is not in dispute by anyone. It states that in honey there is healing. And certainly, I do not think that there is anyone who will argue with that!”

First he is arguing that there could not be medical advice in the Qur’an for this that and the other reason, then he provides an example of such advice rendering his whole argument moot.

Besides, what is there to prevent Allah from having medical knowledge that even we don’t know about now in modern times? Why isn’t that in the Qur’an? Why is it that the only information available is about things that were known prior to Mohammed? Why not share that information? Once they had it there could be contradiction with modern medicine. Even primitive treatments compatible with existing technology would not provide a contradiction. They could have for instance been taught germ theory and surgery. Of course MRI scans or X-ray photography would have been out of the question.

Prophet Muhammad (s) and the Qur'an

The author next tries to argue that the Qur’an could not have been from Mohammed’s mind because it would certainly contain things of concern to Mohammed’s personal life. He concludes from this that, it must have been written by Allah. This is a fallacious argument. People write things all the time without referring to their personal problems. I don’t think you will find any mention in the Theory of Relativity of Einstein’s personal life.

Besides the notion that the Qur’an was not concerned with Mohammed is false. I can think of no document more self-interested than one that purportedly comes from a God and tells everyone to listen to you and you alone. Why would a guy pretending to be a spokesperson for a god start whining about personal problems? That would show weakness. Instead I would expect something like this Surah and especially the part in bold.

33:50 O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war, and the daughters of thine uncle on the father's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of thine uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with thee, and a believing woman if she give herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage - a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers - We are Aware of that which We enjoined upon them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess - that thou mayst be free from blame, for Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

I knew at the outset of first reading the Qur’an that it was suppose to be authored by Allah. Yet the very first surah contains a prayer addressed to Allah. It speaks in the second person saying 1:5 “Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help.” Instances of Allah apparently talking to himself, the many grammatical errors (there are two in Surah 1:5 alone), and the ambiguity in many parts do not point to an omnipotent being as the author. These errors are in the original Arabic, not merely the translation.

Scientific Approach to the Qur'an

Next the author claims that the Qur’an is scientifically falsifiable. He states that this is possible because of this statement in the Qur’an.

“Do they not consider the Qur'an? Had it been from any other than Allah, they would surely have found therein much discrepancy.”

This is a clear challenge to the non-Muslim. Basically, it invites him to find a mistake. As a matter of fact, the seriousness and difficulty of the challenge aside, the actual presentation of such a challenge in the first place is not even in human nature and is inconsistent with man's personality. One doesn't take an exam in school after finishing the exam, write a note to the instructor at the end saying, "This exam is perfect. There are no mistakes in it. Find one if you can!". One just doesn't do that. The teacher would not sleep until he found a mistake! And yet this is the way the Qur'an approaches people."

Actually this type of bragging is quite common of dictators. After all anyone disputing them ends up with their head chopped of. A punishment advocated, no mandated, for unbelievers in the Koran.

Nor is this braggadocio unique to Islam among religions. This statement is not so much a claim of falsifiablility than it is of religious inerrancy. Many religions claim their religious texts are inerrant. So this is not as unusual as the author thinks.

Falsification Test

This section expands on the prior and tries to claim that Islam has a falsification test in the surah:

4:82 "Do they not consider the Qur'an? Had it been from any other than Allah, they would surely have found therein much discrepancy."

In this case for this to truly be a falsification test the Islamic believer must be committed to rejecting his religion should it fail the test. If the test fails and the Qur’an is still claimed to be true then the statement is nothing but a idle boast. To be falsifiable requires more than a just a boast. It also requires the commitment to the rules of logic. After all, what good is it to claim you are falsifiable if you do not accept basic notions of logic?

From a scientific point of view it doesn’t matter whether you make a claim of falsifiablility. What matters is if the hypothesis or theory truly is falsifiable and whether you are willing to live with the logical results. If the theory uses ad-hoc methods to avoid living with falsifications then it is still not a scientific theory regardless of whether it appears to be.

I agree the above Surah 4:82 is falsifiable if one is committed to logic but that does not render it true. Every false statement is falsifiable. In this case the boast itself is false. There is much discrepancy in the Qur’an in the form of many absurdities and contradictions rendering it false, and therefore by deduction the Qur’an is false. However, someone not committed to logic can commit two intellectual deceptions to get out of this conclusion. One is to deny that contradictions are truly contradictions and the other to deny that the falsification test was really valid in the first place. I am sure there are other means to twist the logic.

Of course, none of this is really necessary to prove the Qur’an false if we also are required by Islam to accept that it was written by an omnipotent and omniscient being and unaltered by man. All we need do is find one minor error to prove Islam false.

Embryology & Skeptic's Reaction

The author then brings up the issue of embryology in the Qu’ran. His position being that this is somehow proof of its divine origins. This issue has been covered extensively elsewhere and again this was information that was available prior to the authorship of the Qur’an and therefore contemporaneously. The ancients really were not as ill informed as the author expects us to believe. Here the important part of that article:

But don't take my word for it, early Muslim doctors, like Ibn-Qayyim, were first to blow the whistle when they saw the Koranic material, mirrored a Greek doctor named Galen, who lived of 150 AD. In 1983 Basim Musallam, Director of the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge concluded,

"The stages of development which the Qur'an and Hadith established for believers agreed perfectly with Galen's scientific account....There is no doubt that medieval thought appreciated this agreement between the Qur'an and
Galen, for Arabic science employed the same Qur'anic terms to describe the Galenic stages"
(B. Musallam (Cambridge, 1983) Sex and Society in Islam. p.54)

In other words when it comes to embryology the Qur'an merely echoes the scientific knowledge man had already discovered 450 years earlier.

So the author was wrong. The information was available at the time. Also since the naming of the stages and number is pretty much arbitrary we know the source. It is highly unlikely the same arbitrary choices would be made twice.

I found it interesting that the author of the article I am critiquing had this to say...

“However, because of the high position, respect, and esteem man gives scholars, one naturally assumes that if they research a subject and arrive at a conclusion based on that research, then the conclusion is valid.”

It shows his ignorance of science. This is not how science works. In science, there is an assumption that anyone can make an error. Scientists can and do change their minds.

In this case it appears that Moore has changed his mind. The Saudi’s that funded him got their moneys worth, for sure, since they can use his prior findings based on his ignorance of history, but the scientist now looks foolish or greedy. At the time of his error he was apparently not impressed enough to convert to Islam so apparently, even at the time, he did not assume it was because of divine revelation. If you read the linked article you will also know that in the sixth edition of his book "The developing human" refers the reader to the essay by Basim Musallam that was quoted above. So Moore has retracted his claims.

Geology

The author then moves to Geology without giving a single concrete example. He merely states that the Qur’an is a authority on this subject and tells the reader to look it up himself. This is a not difficult since the Qur’an repeats many of the scientific errors of the bible such as claiming a two-day creation for the earth. This is not the accepted scientific timeframe by an error of over eight orders of magnitude. Not only that but in the Qur’an the earth and heavens are created in backwards order, with earth first then heavens.

The Qur’an states that the earth is “fixed” in 27:61 yet we know it orbits the sun and that the continents move.

Does this sound like valid geology?

“Till, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting
in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout: We said: O Zul Qarnain! Either punish or show them kindness.” (Al-Kahf: 86)

A muddy spring big enough that the sun could be said to be setting in it is quite a geological feature. Now I could understand this if it were to be taken metaphorically. Perhaps he traveled to the edge of a large swamp. The swamp would have to be large enough that the sun would set on the horizon of it and therefore appear to be setting into it. However if we choose to interpret this metaphorically then why not all the other statements like “smaller than an atom” or “two days” in which case they are no longer science.

I looked up some other apologists claims of geology in the Qur’an. They interpret Surah 52: 6 "And by the sea that is set on fire" as being a reference to mid-oceanic trenches. I find that to be anunreasonable interpretive stretch. I will accept that it is a reference to lava which was well know in the ancient world. Remember that the notion of hell fire and brimstone came from such observations. I just don’t see where they get the notion that it was underwater. It plainly states that it is the sea itself that is on fire, which indicates lava to me. Perhaps the context will give more information. It is in Surah 52, which is titled, “Al-Tur” or “The Mount”. This indicates a volcano and not a sea floor.

I checked further and looking in one of my own Qur’ans. It is not translated there as “fire” but instead as “swell”.

52:6 And by the Ocean filled with Swell;

Another online translation has it as “kept filled”:

52:1 By the Mount,
52:2 And a Scripture inscribed
52:3 On fine parchment unrolled,
52:4 And the House frequented,
52:5 And the roof exalted,
52:6 And the sea kept filled,
52:7 Lo! the doom of thy Lord will surely come to pass;
52:8 There is none that can ward it off.
52:9 On the day when the heaven will heave with (awful) heaving,
52:10 And the mountains move away with (awful) movement,
52:11 Then woe that day unto the deniers Those who deny the existence of hell will be thrust into its Fire.
52:12 Who play in talk of grave matters;
52:13 The day when they are thrust with a (disdainful) thrust, into the fire of hell

With plain reading the purpose of the Surah is not to convey any sort of scientific knowledge of ocean floor expansion and volcanism. The purpose of 52:6 is to fix a location by a mountain. With the purpose of the entire Surah being to warn of the damnation of unbelievers, a topic repetitively repeated throughout the Qur’an.

The only reference to fire here is hell fire. So even if the proper translation of 52:6 was “sea that is set on fire” then it is in the context of a mountain and hell fire spouting from it, which is not surprising. How do you fix the location of a single mountain by saying it is next to underwater volcanic sea trenches that span the globe?

You Did Not Know This Before!

In the final section of part 1 the author attempts to argue the Qur’an provides information and states that it is new information “unknown to the reader”. He tries to paint this in a good light by writing …

Undoubtedly, there is an attitude in the Qur'an which is not found anywhere else. It is interesting how when the Qur'an provides information, it often tells the reader, "You did not know this before." Indeed, there is no scripture that exists which makes that claim. All of the other ancient writings and scriptures that people have do give a lot of information, but they always state where the information came from.
For example, when the Bible discusses ancient history, it states that this king lived here, this one fought in a certain battle, another one had so may sons, etc. Yet it always stipulates that if you want more information, then you should read the book of so and so because that is where the information came from.

This is ridiculous; the author is criticizing other religious texts for good scholarship. For that is exactly what a good scholar does, he documents source. A good scholar references his sources so they can be crosschecked and verified.

As an example of bad scholarship just take a look the above text. He claims, “Indeed, there is no scripture that exists which makes that claim.”. Well where did he get that information from exactly? It would be nice to have a footnote with a list of all these religious texts that do not make the claim to be providing new knowledge.

I don’t buy the premise anyway. The whole purpose of writing something is to provide the reader with something he didn’t know before. Is the New Testament telling us about something that the ancient Egyptians knew about long before Christ? Of course not! It was providing us with new information, the arrival of the messiah. Heck, I occasionally get those door-to-door missionaries asking me “Have you heard the news?” They are claiming to be giving me new information also.

He only gives a single specific example of this new information. He again does not provide the Surah so my critique will have to again make up for poor scholarship. The example he gives is this:

In concurrence with the advice given in the Qur'an to research information (even if it is new), when 'Umar was caliph, he chose a group of men and sent them to find the wall of Dhul-Qarnayn. Before the Qur'anic revelation, the Arabs had never heard of such a wall, but because the Qur'an described it, they were able to discover it. As a matter of fact, it is now located in what is called Durbend in the Soviet Union.

So the Koran mentions some wall. This, on the face of it, is not very impressive scientific knowledge and as I dig deeper it will become less so. A simple interpretation is that somebody heard of a wall and believed that other tribesman had not heard of it. The fact that they found a wall and after the fact claimed it was the wall mentioned does not mean in fact that it was the correct wall. After all why not claim it was the Wall of China? Well I researched this further and the name Dhul-arnayn is interpreted by some to be Alexander the Great. In fact you can look up “Alexanders Wall” and you will see that it is in Durbend so this must be the wall he is discussing. One problem is that most historians do not believe Alexander the Great campaigned in that area.

For arguments sake we can live with such a misidentification of how the wall came to be. So what if Alexander didn’t build it. Allah could tell of a wall that was called by that name. Which would be the truth. We can also be generous and assume the correct wall was found. These assumptions are overly generous since the Quran does say that Alexander was in the area.

But the author claims more than mere historical accuracy. He is claiming this is information original to the Qur’an and not available to the locals.

In contrast to this concept, the Qur'an provides the reader with information and states that this information is something new. Of course, there always exists the advice to research the information provided and verify its authenticity. It is interesting that such a concept was never challenged by non-Muslims fourteen centuries ago.
Indeed, the Makkans who hated the Muslims, and time and time again they heard such revelations claiming to bring new information; yet, they never spoke up and said, "This is not new. We know where Muhammad got this information. We learned this at school." They could never challenge its authenticity because it really was new!

What of it? So what if the Makkans were a bunch of ignoramuses. Perhaps they didn’t even go to school. The author has made a lot of claims here but again he does not back them up with references. A particular person’s or group’s ignorance of some information does not prove that it is new information. I never heard of the wall of Alexander before but that doesn’t mean others have not, nor does it mean the information had divine providence.

So what about the claim that this was new information, that is, information that would indicate a divine source? Well certainly if there were people calling it “The Wall of Alexander” they knew about it. Turns out that the Surah, 18:94-7, that mentions this is doing so in the context of Gog and Magog, a story from the Bible, not exactly a new story. Note that the wall is not mentioned in the bible. Here’s the Surah from the Qur’an…

18:93 Till, when he came between the two mountains, he found upon their hither side a folk that scarce could understand a saying.
18:94 They said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Lo! Gog and Magog are spoiling the land. So may we pay thee tribute on condition that thou set a barrier between us and them ?
18:95 He said: That wherein my Lord hath established me is better (than your tribute). Do but help me with strength (of men), I will set between you and them a bank.
18:96 Give me pieces of iron - till, when he had levelled up (the gap) between the cliffs, he said: Blow! - till, when he had made it a fire, he said: Bring me molten copper to pour thereon.
18:97 And (Gog and Magog) were not able to surmount, nor could they pierce (it).

So is the story of Gog and Magog including the reference to the wall something unknown to peoples of the time and area? Well it turns out that the answer is no. There was a Syrian legend of Alexander circulating seventy years before Mohammed’s birth about Gog and Magog that mentions the wall.

From the Syrian "Christian Legend concerning Alexander" (circa about 500 AD?):
(144) An exploit by Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, showing how he went forth to the ends of the world, and made a gate of iron, and shut it in the face of the north wind, that the Hunaye might not come forth to spoil the countries: from the manuscripts in the house of the archives of the kings of Alexandria.

So the fact is that this is not new information.

Nor did I find a claim in the Koran that this is "new information". The author lies twice.

Science is not merely a few isolated facts about the world. Science is an entire methodology of cataloging information and creating well-tested models of how the world. There are certain assumptions about the world that science makes and certain rules that are followed that are entirely at odds with the whole concept of a revealed religion. As an example, scientists do not chop off the heads of other scientists with opposing views.

Scientists assume that existing beliefs and models may be mistaken because of the inherent fallibility of men. Scientists assume the world behaves in a regular and understandable fashion. Scientists assume that the world is not self-contradictory. These are reasonable assumptions because without them the world would be unknowable. Such assumptions are called a-priori since any honest attempt to gain knowledge has to rely on them.

If men were infallible there would be no controversy about to how to gain knowledge, that there is proves that men are fallible. If the world were not regular then the pursuit of knowledge would be pointless since applying such knowledge would not allow us to act with reasonable expectation that the outcomes of such acts would match our expectations. If the world where self-contradictory then the predictions of outcomes from prior knowledge and actions would also be impossible.

Here are some surahs that I have collected that are incompatible with the sprit of science. They are incompatible because they are not open to the possibility of error in the Islamic belief system, or because they are illogical with regard to an honest intellectual pursuit of knowledge. This is a small sampling and just scratches the surface.

2:6 As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not.
2:7 Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.
2:96 And thou wilt find them greediest of mankind for life and
(greedier) than the idolaters. (Each) one of them would like to be allowed to live a thousand years. And to live (a thousand years) would be no means remove him from the doom. Allah is Seer of what they do.
2:99 Verily We have revealed unto thee clear tokens, and only miscreants will disbelieve in them.
2:121 Those unto whom We have given the Scripture, who read it with the right reading, those believe in it. And whoso disbelieveth in it, those are they who are the losers.
4:61 And when it is said unto them: Come unto that which Allah hath revealed and unto the messenger, thou seest the hypocrites turn from thee with aversion.
4:89 They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them
6:110 We confound their hearts and their eyes. As they believed not
therein at the first, We let them wander blindly on in their contumacy.
9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
29:68 Who doeth greater wrong than he who inventeth a lie concerning Allah, or denieth the truth when it cometh unto him ? Is not there a home in hell for disbelievers ?
33:1 O Prophet! Keep thy duty to Allah and obey not the disbelievers and the hypocrites. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise.
33:61 Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.
51:10 Accursed be the conjecturers
59:13 Ye are more awful as a fear in their bosoms than Allah. That is because they are a folk who understand not.
61:9 He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much idolaters may be averse.
98:6 Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and
the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created
beings.

Here they are rephrased as pseudo-unscientific principles.

2:6 Don’t bother telling other scientists about your theories. It is all the same whether you do or don’t. They wouldn’t have believed even if you told them.
2:7 The correct theory itself has made the other scientists prejudiced and blinded them. They will die awfully as they implode into a black hole.
2:96 Jews are greedy, that’s why they don’t believe in proper theories and shouldn’t be scientists at all. Gravity has doomed them. They are being pulled by it.
2:99 My theories are obvious, and only miscreants will disbelieve in them.
2:121 Any scientist who reads my theories properly will believe in them. Any other scientists are losers.
4:61 If you tell people about my theories then the hypocrites will turn away in aversion.
4:89 Other scientist who do not believe in my theories wish that you should too, so that you will be debased to their level. So do not be friends with such scientists till they not only believe but run their lives according to my theories. If after agreeing to my theories they believe they are false then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose neither friend nor lab assistant from among them
6:110 Since they didn’t accept my theories blindly, therefore, the theories themselves have had the effect of addling their brains and blurring their eyesight. My theories will let them wander blindly on in their contemptuous resistance to my authority.
9:5 After the university spring break is over, personally slay the opposing scientists who use pictures of human anatomy, drawings of animals and other drawings and models of organisms. Slay them wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each an ambush in the faculty lounge. But if they repent and establish a university department addressing your theories and pay for your teaching assistants, then leave their
way free. Look at us! We are flexible about our theories.
29:68 There is no greater crime than for another scientist to criticize my theories, or claim they are not true. Are not lecture duties assigned to those who disbelieve my theories?
33:1 Oh myself! Believe my own theories as a duty to myself. I
promise myself not to obey anyone who doesn’t believe my theories.
33:61 Accursed [scientists], they will be seized wherever found, be it the laboratory or out doing field research, and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.
51:10 Accursed be the theoretical conjecturers (scientists).
59:13 Other scientists fear me more than they fear my theories. Because … boy are those other scientists stupid!
61:9 The one theory has lead me to all other true theories and sent me to so that I might conquer by violence all of science however much other scientists may not like it.
98:6 Look! Any scientist who doesn’t believe in my theories is end up in the autoclave. They are less than dirty pigs (so what does it matter).

This is certainly not in the spirit of open scientific inquiry. This is hardly surprising since a revealed religion is based on faith. Faith is belief unsupported by evidence, whereas science deals in the opposite.

I have read part 2 and 3 of the article and I find them similarly lacking. Perhaps if I have the time I will review them later.